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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Presidential Race May Rival Cold War, 1968 as U.S. History's Turning Point Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The stakes in the U.S. presidential election may be the highest in decades, with danger spots multiplying around the world and economic threats looming at home. The election -- the first in 56 years that doesn't involve an incumbent president or vice president -- kicks off today in Iowa, a year after candidates such as Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama began campaigning. After the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, no more than a third of the 20 Democrats and Republicans who took part in last year's debates are likely to be left standing. Both Democrats and Republicans are stressing the election's importance, spending record amounts of money to convince voters they are best-suited to take on crises ranging from global terrorism and the war in Iraq to a housing slump that threatens to send the U.S. economy into recession. ``This is roughly like the time of the beginning of the Cold War, when the country was searching for a wise policy to meet the international challenges,'' says presidential historian Robert Dallek. ``That's really the big issue of this election.'' Domestic concerns are no less pressing. In addition to a wave of real-estate foreclosures, the economy is under stress from funding crises facing the Medicare and Social Security systems, and 47 million Americans still lack health insurance. 'Immense' ``The issues are immense,'' says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University in New Jersey. ``One of the big questions the next president will need to deal with is the economic insecurity of middle-class Americans. Another will be health care, which both parties now agree has become a serious problem.'' The only two recent elections where it was clear the stakes were as high were in 1968, when the next president would have to confront the divisive Vietnam war, and in 1980, when the Iranian hostage crisis was undermining U.S. prestige abroad and stagflation was undermining the economy at home. History has shown Iowa and New Hampshire to be make-or- break contests for some candidates. Democrat John Kerry capitalized on a come-from-behind victory in Iowa in 2004, followed by a win in New Hampshire, to sweep through much of the rest of the country. Howard Dean had been favored to win Iowa and never recovered from a third-place finish there. Second Tier Of the top three Democratic contenders, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards has the most riding on a win in Iowa, since he was spending time in the state long before Senators Clinton and Obama became candidates. If either Clinton or Obama wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, they may have the nomination virtually locked up just five days into the process. The second-tier Democratic candidates are doomed unless they pull off a surprise in either of the first two contests. That probably means at least a third-place finish for any of the five -- Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel. The Republican picture is more complicated. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee rode a last-minute spurt of support to overtake former Massachusetts Governor Romney in polls of Iowa voters. A victory in the state would catapult Huckabee into a top contender; a poor showing would send him back to the land of also-rans. Win or Else Romney has poured most of his time and money into Iowa and New Hampshire and needs a victory in at least one of the states to stay near the top. Arizona Senator John McCain is depending on a win in New Hampshire, a state he claimed in the 2000 Republican primary with a big victory over George W. Bush. The national Republican frontrunner, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is hoping he can buck history and cruise to later victories -- especially in big states, including California, New York and Illinois, which moved their primaries up to Feb. 5 -- to claim the nomination. Rival Fred Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, is looking to the South. Their strategies may backfire as attention zooms in on the winners of the first two states. ``There's so little time after Iowa and New Hampshire for voters to take a second look,'' says Linda Fowler, a government professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. ``It's ironic because what other states have done in order to minimize the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire is to compress the calendar. In doing that, they made these two states even more important.'' Different Landscape Voters in the two states will make their choice amid a radically changed political landscape from eight years ago. ``It's a different world than it was in 2000,'' says Mark Wrighton, chairman of the political science department at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. ``Even the person who may be able to claim the most relevant experience is still going to be facing a daunting task.'' In 2000, the U.S. was still in its longest economic expansion and there were few obvious dangers from abroad. The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the war in Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq have turned Americans' focus more overseas. Trouble spots are mushrooming, a fact underlined by the assassination last week of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. North Korea and Iran also pose potential dangers to U.S. security. Judgment Clinton, 60, a former first lady and New York senator, argues that she has the best resume to handle the job. Obama, 46, of Illinois says he can bring people together and has the right judgment on issues such as the Iraq war, which he opposed from the start. Edwards, 54, paints himself as an outsider who won't bend to special interests. Republican candidates highlight their executive experience. For Huckabee, 52, and Romney, 60, that's their previous jobs as governors; for Giuliani, 63, it's his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks and his fiscal record as mayor. McCain, 71, touts his Senate accomplishments and his record as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and Thompson, 65, draws on his life outside politics, including as an actor. Their success in Iowa hinges on a system in which fewer than 10 percent of the state's 3 million people regularly take part in the two parties' caucuses, which involve gathering at public places, sometimes for hours, to choose delegates. To win those votes, the candidates have flooded Iowa's airwaves with advertising. Democrats have far outstripped Republicans on TV ads, shelling out $23.7 million in the state, up from just $9.1 million in 2003, according to a Dec. 28 report by the Campaign Media Analysis Group in Arlington, Virginia. Republicans have spent $9.5 million, with Romney accounting for two-thirds of that. ``It's smashing all records,'' says Dianne Bystrom, a political-communications expert at Iowa State University.
Poster Comment: Another MSM report that doesn't even give Ron Paul a mention. I've had the cable news networks on all morning and I have yet to hear RP's name even mentioned.
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